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Myself as Mozillian

Myself as Mozillian

Summary of my journey with Mozilla from March till December 2013

Since 9th standard I am using internet, and the day I started using internet is same the day I started using Mozilla products (starting with Firefox, our most favourite browser). I am feeling glad to volunteer as Mozillian, and now this has been around 9 months that I have been doing this work. I would like to share my experience with you, what all I did, and I got volunteering with Mozilla.

In March, we had one Mozilla event in our campus in which Mozilla Rep Sujith Reddy told us about Open Source, Open Web and Mozilla. He also told us many ways to support Mozilla like AoA, Support Forum, App Development etc. This is where I got a push to volunteer Mozilla. He also told us how Mozilla recognizes volunteers’ contribution.

March : Ground work, Planned for Club

I started exploring more about stuffs I learned in the workshop. I talked to my classmates and we decided to initiate a community so that other also gets chance to know about Open Source. With the mission of providing a good encouraging environment for others we planned to initiate a club. We had a couple of meeting and finalized name ‘Open Source Open Community’, we also agreed upon names of Janet Ma’am as our staff advisor, my name as club lead.

First Mozilla Event attended by me at NITT

April: Initiated OSOC, Started contributing to SuMo

April 01, 2013 was the day OSOC finally started activities. We had first General Body Meeting, and planned for kick off events. We decided for two workshops in April & May. We were in touch with Mozilla reps Sujith Reddy & Jai Pradeesh. With their help we organised our first event on April 19, 2013. It was an Open Source & Mozilla introduction session for MCA students of our college.

Other than this, I personally started contributing Mozilla with SuMo – AoA, QA etc. I also filed my first bug. We also celebrated 15th anniversary of Mozilla this month.

May : Joined FSA, Organised Events

FSA Program was launched by Mozilla this month. I, along with my friends, joined FSA program. I was very excited about this program since April itself when I got to know about it from Mozilla’s Facebook page. I told one of my friends, Osho Parth, at Jaipur about OSOC, FSA etc. and he also shown lot of interest in it. He is one of active Mozilla contributors. We organised another event from OSOC in our campus. This time we were delighted by presence of ReMo Sujith Reddy and Mozillian Sairam Sundar. Links of event is https://reps.mozilla.org/e/familiarizing-opensource-software-hands-on-with-fedora-and-ubuntu-os/

We also planned one more event for Jaipur, MozhackJaipur. Osho has also started a club in Jaipur named Jaipur Open Source Open Community, and Mozhack was inauguration event for JOSOC. It was also a huge success. For the first time I was on such a big stage in a big hall as lead speaker. Link of this event is https://reps.mozilla.org/e/mozhackathon-developing-apps-for-firefox-os/

I reached on the top of AoA’s “Top contributors this week” list. From May till now, most of the time I held position in this list.

June : I became a mozillian now.

My profile on Mozillians.org was vouched by Sujith Reddy. I also applied for GSoC (Google Summer of Code) and tried to get a project at Mozilla, but unfortunately didn’t get it. This was time I learned about Firefox OS, and started writing apps for Firefox marketplace. I also got to know more about IRC, Mailing lists etc. Tried starting with Firefox hacking. I kept writing posts on my blog about Mozilla related stuffs.

July : First app got accepted for Firefox marketplace, Started following Mailing lists

I submitted my first app in May itself, but it was rejected. Then in vacations I learned more and removed all errors. Finally this month my first app was submitted. I helped other friends also, and another app by my friend Prity Bhudolia was also accepted in this month itself. I also started following mailing lists. Click here for list of my apps.

It was most important time of my college life, and for two month I was continuously studying for placements. Finally I got a very good job offer. During this period also I tried to continue contribution. I stated with Answering Questions on SuMo forum, and of course I was continuing AoA. In this period I was also helping my club members and other friends with their contribution to Mozilla. I helped few of my friends in publishing their apps to marketplace. And pulled many of my friends to FSA program. I was actively helping people in OSOC and JOSOC groups.

Oct : Organized series of 3 workshops

Our club organized three workshops in our campus on topics Open Source, Web Development & App development respectively. These were the biggest workshops we ever organized. Report of the workshop can be found on OSOC blog at http://osocnitt.wordpress.com/workshops. We also had a meeting with ReMo Sujith Reddy when he visited our campus on 24th. I joined few more mailing lists, and following them actively. I got AoA badge in this month. I also kept posting about Mozilla and its products on my blog.

Nov : App of The Month winner, added to about:credits

For FSA I developed couple of apps for Firefox Marketplace. One of them also became the winner of ‘App of the month contest’. I also filed one new bug. This month itself I was awarded with the AoA badge. We also spend time on planning for winter vacations events at Jaipur. Our planning’s etherpad link is https://etherpad.mozilla.org/rBOixOkE2s.

Dec : Jaipur Events(One Month, One Mozilla, One City and Me), Bugzilla

I came to my hometown, and as we planned few events in November itself, we executed them well, you can read about all of them in my blog post https://gurumukhi.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/mozillajaipur. The events were organized by myself and Osho Parth, and were guided by ReMo Dron Rathore. Along with organizing two grand workshops we also initiated MCR community (which I take as one giant footstep for building Mozilla community in Rajasthan).

subodh college mozilla event

I had started my try to hack Firefox in June, but now I could finally see some results. This month I was able to submit 2 patches out. I also submitted 4 apps this month. Got many new contributors. Now few more events are yet to be organized. One in JNV school & another in Rajdhani College.